I'll be Home for Christmas
by SeaSpectre160
Summary: The Legends crash the Wests' Christmas party. Twenty-second in 'Long Way Home'.


**Okay, so this is obviously late, but I'm going to take that as a testament of how busy and fulfilling my own Christmas was.**

 **So for Season 2 of Legends, I'm planning on a multi-chapter fic called 'The Cold Factor' that will essentially be S2, altered to fit the 'Long Way Home' continuity - this means Len is with the team and there is no Flashpoint. It's only in the planning stages, and won't be finished until after the season finale at the earliest, but it's projected to have 19 chapters (17 episodes plus the 'Flash' and 'Arrow' parts of 'Invasion!'). Like 'Dear Lisa' and 'The Darkness that Keeps You Up at Night', it'll have one chapter posted every Thursday - even though Legends is moving to Tuesdays in January. This fic does contain spoilers for some alterations I'm already planning.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'Legends of Tomorrow' or 'The Flash'. Some bits of dialogue are taken directly from 'Flash' 3x09 'The Present', so I don't own those, either.**

 **WORD COUNT: 2094**

* * *

 _Saturday, December 24_ _th_ _, 2016_

"I _cannot_ believe we're doing this."

"Oh, cheer up, Lenny! It's Christmas – don't be such a Grinch!"

Len rolled his eyes as he reluctantly allowed his girlfriend and his sister to drag him through the rain to the front door of Joe West's house. After their little adventure in 1920s Chicago, Sara had declared that they would be taking a break for the holidays. Stein and Jax had already gone home to their respective families while the rest of the Legends had accepted Barry and Iris's invitation to the West Family Christmas Eve Party. Yes, even the newly-pardoned crooks. Lisa had heard of this, and, having also been pardoned for helping fight the Dominators, had decided to crash the party. The fact that a certain metahuman engineer was almost certainly a factor in her decision was not lost on Len, but he resigned himself to an evening of making sure Cisco kept his hands off his baby sister.

That being said, he knew that getting said baby sister to keep _her_ hands off _Cisco_ would be an entirely different challenge.

Barry greeted them at the door with a big, toothy, megawatt smile that could've powered the whole city for the night. "You made it!" he cried, gleefully stating the obvious, "Merry Christmas! Come on in!"

Quite a crowd had already gathered in the Wests' living room. Leonard recognised Caitlin and Cisco and Wally West talking with the Harrison Wells of Earth-19, who appeared to already be quite drunk. Mick immediately made tracks towards the kitchen, having heard that there would be _really_ good eggnog being served tonight. Lisa, on the other hand, made a beeline for Cisco, and practically jumped on him. "Hi, Cisco!" she chirped brightly.

"H-hi, Lisa!" Cisco greeted her back, his smile faltering when he saw the scowl aimed at him by Len.

An elbow in the ribs drew his attention to Sara. "Leave him alone," she scolded, "Lisa's a big girl, remember?" Before he could protest, she dragged him over to the kitchen, where Mick was basically engaged in a tense staring contest with a short woman Len recognised while Det. West looked on, looking equal parts irritated and anxious.

"What is the DA of Central City doing here?" Len muttered, quietly enough that said woman and those nearest her couldn't hear him.

"She's Dad's date," Wally replied just as softly from behind him. Len turned to look at the kid; they hadn't gotten to know each other very well during the summer, and their interaction during the Dominators' invasion had mostly consisted of the ex-crook shooting the newbie speedster while under the aliens' mind control. "And yeah, she knows that you guys were pardoned, but unlike everyone else here, she isn't allowed to know about the Dominators, so…"

"So all she knows is some smoke-and-mirrors crap she's been told by some government suit," Len concluded.

"Pretty much."

"Great." Len had known that there would already be some tension from Joe, a cop with three pardoned criminals attending his Christmas party, but he, at least, knew what they'd done to earn those pardons. This woman had no idea, no reason to trust them besides some vague orders from the government to leave them alone. Deciding he might as well get this over with, Len sighed and stepped further in, but it was Sara who spoke up first.

"Hi, Joe!" she greeted the detective cheerfully.

Joe relaxed a bit, probably happy to have a party guest that he could introduce his date to without a problem. "Hi, Sara. Glad you could make it. Cecile, this is Barry and Iris's friend Sara Lance; Sara, this is Cecile Horton, my, uh…"

"His girlfriend," Iris filled in with a roll of her eyes, "even if they aren't calling it that yet."

Mick snorted. "Reminds me of someone else I know."

"Shut up, Mick," Len groaned.

"Nearly everyone here knows how you saw 'us' coming before we did," Sara added, pouring out three Santa mugs of eggnog and passing two of them to her teammates.

"Wasn't just me," Mick argued, "Kendra saw it, Jax saw it, Stein, even _Haircut_ figured out that you two had a thing for each other. Think Rip was the only one who didn't see it coming." He took a sip of the eggnog and frowned. "Could use some more bourbon."

Sara took her own sip and nodded her agreement. When Len took his own drink, however, he nearly choked, suddenly understanding the looks of mild shock everyone else was sending their way. "Are you two kidding me?! I think there's more booze in this than 'nog. I don't mind a good, strong drink, but give me a cocoa over this any day."

And then there was Barry, offering him that silly little reindeer mug with an impish look on his face. "With mini-marshmallows and everything." Len gladly traded mugs with him, smirking at the reminder of their… discussion last Christmas.

"You don't think that's strong _enough_?" Caitlin asked incredulously.

"Please," Mick snorted, "I could probably drink a whole gallon of this and not even be buzzed."

"Please," Sara repeated, "I could drink twice that, and feel nothing!"

"Yeah, well-"

"Don't!" Raymond interrupted, and for once, Len was in total agreement with him, "We do _not_ need you two to get into another drinking contest! Not after what happened last time!"

"Last time?" Amaya asked with the air of someone who was dreading the answer to her own question.

"Mick passed out first, as usual," Len explained, "So Raymond and I had to drag him to his room. Literally."

"And halfway there, he woke up just long enough to puke on me and then pass out again," Raymond continued, "And we both kind of dropped him on his face at one point-"

"Wait, what?" Mick interrupted. He hadn't retained all his memories of that night, and that was a detail that, until now, had gone unrevealed.

Len ignored him. "And when I went back for Sara, she'd fallen asleep under the table – apparently she can't hold her tequila nearly as well as she can moonshine – and she nearly stabbed me when I tried to pick her up and carry her back to our room."

"I said sorry in the morning," Sara protested.

"Only for the first time. It happened _twice_ on the trip there, too."

"Okay, fine, I'm sorry for those times, too."

"Hey, I heard there was eggnog?" Nate asked, joining the every-growing crowd of people in the kitchen.

Len did a double-take at the historian. "Heywood, what in the hell are you wearing?"

Nate glanced down at the horrendous construction of red, green, and white wool that apparently passed for a Christmas sweater, which had been hidden under his coat until now. It was actually worse than the one HR – back for yet another round of eggnog – had on. "My grandmother made this for me for Christmas," he explained, "It was the last gift I ever got from her. I wear it every year."

That set off a whole slew of stories of special Christmas presents from lost relatives, ones that made Len roll his eyes. But he was a bit surprised when Sara, instead of sharing a story about Laurel (at which he would _not_ have rolled his eyes, of course), drained the last of her eggnog and pulled him out to the living room. He didn't protest, glad to be free of the over-crowded kitchen, and the look in her eyes suggested she wanted to spend some time under that mistletoe they'd spotted on the way in.

Unfortunately, it was already in use.

"Ramon!"

Len took no small amount of pleasure from the high-pitched _shriek_ that Cisco emitted upon being caught making out with Lisa.

Lisa, on the other hand, was less than amused. "God, Lenny!" she snapped, "Will you quit the 'overprotective big brother' act?! I'm thirty years old, for god's sake! And you!" She suddenly turned on Cisco. "Quit being so scared of him! You have your own metahuman powers and can blast him across the room if he gives you any grief!"

"Lisa!" both Len and Cisco complained in unison, the latter scowling when he realised it.

Before any further argument could be made, the living room was suddenly invaded by literally everyone except for DA Horton.

"What's going on?" Sara asked.

"Joe kissed Cecile," HR reported drunkenly, "Good job, Joe!"

"How many of those have you had?" Barry finally asked, pointing to the mug in HR's clutches.

He didn't get an answer, though, as his attention was soon drawn to the big box Det. West pulled out from under the Christmas tree and presented to Wally. "Okay, so while Cecile's on the phone with her daughter, this is from all of us on Team Flash to you. Merry Christmas, son."

Wally cracked the lid of the box open, then let it drop back down with an astonished look, at which his father and sister started laughing. "Are you serious?" He then opened the box fully to reveal something made of yellow leather.

"Yeah, man. It's time!"

"You're ready, Wallace," HR added.

"Welcome to the team," Barry said as Wally pulled out his new suit, "Kid Flash."

"Are we really calling me Kid Flash?" Wally complained.

"Yeah, I think we are," Iris confirmed.

"Kid Flash!" HR cheered, only to be shushed by everyone else, as the DA was only in another room of the house and still within hearing range.

While everyone else gathered around to congratulate the newest superhero of Central City, Len glanced over his shoulder and pulled Sara over to the front door, near which another spring of mistletoe hung.

They'd barely gotten there when someone knocked on the door. "Police!" they heard HR whisper-yell.

"I got it," Barry said, "And it's not the po- _we're_ the police!"

"You're the police!" Yeah, he'd had _way_ too much eggnog.

Len sighed in annoyance as Barry approached the door. They couldn't catch a break, could they?! Barry did a brief double-take at the two of them, his eyes flicking up towards the mistletoe, and shrugged apologetically before opening the door for an unshaven blonde guy in a grey suit. Len and Sara walked away as the two of them started talking, hoping that maybe the dining room would be empty and they could take advantage of the mistletoe hanging in there.

It was. And they did. Until Horton came back into the room with a surprised "Oh!" that had them pulling apart and staring at her in annoyance. Thankfully, she just shook her head, took another drink of eggnog, and continued on her way to the living room, muttering that she wasn't even going to bother. Len wasn't sure what, exactly, she wasn't going to bother, but decided that his time was better spent on Sara's lips than debating that.

But then they were faced with another interruption as Catilin brought the newcomer through the dining room to get some eggnog for the kitchen.

"Screw it," Len grumbled, reaching up and taking the mistletoe off its hook, "We're gonna need a goddamn _door_ if we don't want anyone else walking in on us." Sara just giggled and hooked her arm around his, the two of them walking past West and Horton as they opened the door for carollers and up the stairs, looking for an empty room.

They wound up in what Len guessed was a guest bedroom, as Sara drew the line at using any of their hosts' bedrooms, and locked the door behind them.

"Glad you decided to come?" Sara asked huskily, even as she started tugging at his dark green sweater (which, when paired with her own red one, was about as festive as he was willing to get).

"I seem to recall _you_ being the one making the decision for me," he retorted, slipping his fingers under her shirt, "But this isn't turning out to be nearly as unbearable as I thought it would be."

She pushed him back onto the bed before crawling on top of him. "Merry Christmas, Len."

"Happy Birthday, Sara," he whispered against her lips.

THE END

* * *

 **So, to comment on what I've revealed about 'The Cold Factor': Len will be with the team during the Invasion storyline, and will also be placed under the Dominators' mind control. I have him shooting Wally instead of Kara hitting him because if you watch that fight scene, Mick kind of disappears after it starts - we have Oliver fighting Dig, Thea, and Sara on the ground, and Barry fighting the powered people, but it appears that whoever choreographed that whole fight sequence forgot that Mick was there. Or maybe I just missed him. Either way, I'm giving the team crooks some more involvement.**

 **Lisa is also part of the teamup, as I'm not limited by silly things such as which actors are available and which ones aren't. Others will be making an appearance, but that's still a secret ;).**

 **Oh, and the criminals all get pardons for it. Because they got commended by the freaking PRESIDENT, so pardons don't seem that far-fetched.**

 **Lastly: Sara didn't go to Star City because I do want to stay as close to canon as possible (certain SPECIFIC major changes aside) and I have no clue what the HELL is going on with Laurel's appearance.**


End file.
